On 11/17/2015 5:03 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 4:41:46 PM UTC-5, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 11/17/2015 3:39 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:45:33 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 11/17/15 1:04 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 17 Nov 2015 12:48:08 -0500, Keyser Söze
wrote:

On 11/17/15 12:43 PM, True North wrote:
On Tuesday, 17 November 2015 12:51:11 UTC-4, Keyser Söze wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/oe58qgs


On the way to his new owner...

Looks in good shape. I believe the 4Runner was based on the Tacoma..or what came before it, maybe a T100??
I thought about one for a minute or two but felt the smoother riding Highlander would suit me and the boss a bit better. Believe the Highlander was based originally on the Camray.


Yeah, I believe the 4Runner is built on the Tacoma chassis. Separate
frame and body, not monocoupe. It really was a great vehicle, with
absolutely no problems and only the usual maintenance items - tires,
wiper blades, a battery, brakes...that's about it. Toyota does it right,
most of the time.

We have had pretty good luck with Hondas but we also seem to do well
with Fords.. We paid $3500 for old "brownie", drove it for 10 years
and sold it for almost $5000 (Thanks Barack)
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Brownie.jpg

I also had 2 E-150 Econolines that treated me well and the 2000 Sport
Trak we have now is still doing well. My 97 Prelude is still getting
the job done with embarrassingly little maintenance.


I do like the Japanese approach to ordinary cars. Toyota, Honda, Nissan,
et cetera, seem to do a nice job. My sister in law has an Audi, and when
it needs a repair, the labor and parts charges seem outrageous, and the
damned thing really eats tires. One of the guys down the street has a
"5" series BMW, and, to me, it seems entirely too clever and
over-engineered. My sports car is that way, too, but the mileage is low,
it lives in the garage, and only goes out on nice days.


BMW is ridiculous. A battery is something like $500.
Everything is simply unnecessary complication to a fairly simple task.

BMW makes some superb cars but their complexity, rigid maintenance needs
and constant revisions to the computer system is what drove me away from
them.

Between my wife and I, we had 7 different BMW's over the years including
two M5's (the first of which BMW took back due to too many problems), a
Z4 (wife's), a 740, a 750, a 335ci (wife's) and an X5. Got tired of
all the "special" maintenance requirements, even though they were
covered with the purchase. The M5's were the worst. Constant problems
with the software which controlled just about everything.

I left the 750 in our garage in Florida for one summer that we were not
there. Put a BMW battery minder (trickle charger) on it. Came back the
next fall and it was dead. I then discovered it had *two* batteries.
A BMW dealership came and put it on a flatbed to be serviced and have
new batteries installed. Batteries were not covered by warranty. $900.

Went back to simple Ford products. They do the job, maybe not in as an
exciting fashion but don't require much more than regular oil changes.

Yeouch! They saw you coming. Nothing special about the batteries, you can pick up a "gold" top of the line battery for $150. Ten minute job to change it. My old Audi burned out a headlight, and the stealership wanted $250 to put a new bulb in. I bought the bulb off Amazon for about $50 and did it myself in about 45 minutes. Had to remove the air filter box and air pipe to the intake to get to the back of the headlamp, but it was no big deal.

My new Audi requires an oil change every 10,000. I bought the first four services when I bought the car at a reduced price. There's no other special service required for it. I do realize that they are, like BMW's, more expensive to repair out of warranty than many other vehicles. When the 5yr, 100,000 mile CPO warranty runs out, it'll be someone else's problem.

Otherwise, it just like any other car... wears brakes, tires, and other "consumables" just like anything else. It's just really nice while its doing it.



No question they are nice cars. I enjoyed driving them but too many
issues ... especially with the M5's. I bought it (them) to drive and
enjoy, not to be constantly going back to the dealership with computer
problems (red cog of death symbol on dash) and notices for software
updates. The Porsche that I eventually got to replace the last M5 was a
different beast altogether. No fancy computer controls. Just 450 hp
coupled to all wheel drive through a six speed manual transmission. Car
was awesome, trouble free and could run circles around an M5. Well, not
really but it was definitely faster, handled better and got
about 22 mpg on average.